The well informed Ukrainian I spent a couple hours with yesterday said exactly this. That Putin was threatened by Ukraine become part of NATO and getting nukes, with their western paid and propped corrupt govt. He chose invading now to prevent the nukes no matter what the current cost over the cost of having to do it after the nukes.
Why didn’t the west play chess with this thing and realize of course Putin would attack???? Why are we blaming him when it was our “oligarchs” of the west ignoring this inevitability and playing with fire? It’s like we climbed into a lion’s den and are shocked the lion attacked.
And that truth does not mean you are supporting Putin.
Russia was in the same position as Austria-Hungary in 1914. They were getting weaker relative to Russia and Serbia. Pan-Slavic nationalism was strengthening among the Slavs within Austria-Hungary and in the Balkans as more countries were liberated from the Turks.
The Austro-Hungarians had to role the dice and take their chances in 1914.